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Friday, January 10, 2014

Has Google gone too far by sending people to jail?

Google+ notifications are convenient for some. An alert automatically
goes out to your friends with an invite for Google+. Google does the
work for you, so you don’t have to, right?

Some are calling this “convenience” a worst case scenario for a
Massachusetts man that was jailed for an email invitation to his
ex-girlfriend who put a restraining order on him.

Thomas Gagnon is saying he did not send this invitation to his
ex-girlfriend, which he ended up in jail for. Police arrested him with a
$500 bail.

When Gagnon’s ex-girlfriend received the invitation, she went to the
police to complain that Gagnon violated his restraining order by sending
her the email.

Microsoft attacks Google

A hearing for this case has been sent on Feburary 6, 2014. Gagnon’s
attorney, Neil Hourihan, told the media his client has no idea how the
invitation got sent.

ABC News has tried to contact both Hourihan and Gagnon but has not been successful.

Attorney Bradley Shear of Bethesda, Md., told ABC News it is likely
Gagnon is telling the truth. If he didn’t send the invitation to his
ex-girlfriend, Google could face a major liability for sending the
invite without his permission.

Google+ allows users to connect their email contacts into various
groups like; school classmates, professional contacts, and personal
friends. If one contact is moved to a certain group, it will trigger
Google to send an email inviting them to join Google+.

Shear pointed out that a Google product forum from 2011 and 2012
titled “Prevent automatic email invitations to Google+?” that involved
many angry complaints by Google+ users about the automatic invitation
feature.

One customer wrote:

“As soon as I add an email to a circle, Google seems to
send an email automatically asking that person to join Google Plus. Is
there any way of turning this off? I don’t want Google to send any email
on my behalf without my permission. At least I would expect some sort
of warning.”

Gmail practices

Google is making a case that Gmail practices do not violate privacy law.

Shear stated, “Google is going through every one of your contacts and
sending them an invitation, weather its your doctor, your lawyer, your
mistress, or your ex-fiancee who’s got a restraining order against you”.

This situation is a perfect example of what happens when a company oversteps its bounds.

What do you think about Gmail automatically sending out invites to your contact? Let us know what you think?

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